Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) can generate hydrogen and oxygen from water by electrolysis. But the electrode and polymer electrolyte membrane degrade rapidly during PEM water electrolysis because of high operation voltage over 1.7V. In order to reduce the rate of anode electrode degradation, unsupported catalyst was used generally. In this study, Pt/C catalyst for PEMFC was used as a water electrolysis catalyst, and then the degradation of catalyst and membrane were analysed. After water electrolysis reaction in the voltage range from 1.8V to 2.0V, I-V curves, impedance spectra, cyclic voltammograms and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) were measured at PEMFC operation condition. The degradation rate of electrode and membrane increased as the voltage of water electrolysis increased. The hydrogen yield was 88 % during water electrolysis for 1 min at 2.0V, the performance at 0.6V decreased to 49% due to degradation of membrane and electrode assembly.

Explosives are reactive material that contain a great amount of high potential energy. They produce detonation if released suddenly, accompanied by the production of strong light, high heat, great noise and high pressure. Damage at surrounding detonation point is affected by high pressure and blast wave for explosives detonation. Consequently, analysis of pressure and blast wave is very important. This study focuses on the analysis of maximum overpressure and blast wave of explosives for safety assurance. First of all, four cases of the amount of HMX were selected. Secondly, maximum pressure and blast wave were calculated through detonation simulation along with a set of TNT and HMX quantities. The peripheral effect of detonation point was analyzed by calculating overpressure and absolute velocity and considering detonation occurred in the center of geometry by HMX. Also, maximum overpressure and blast wave of HMX were compared to equivalent amount of TNT, which was taken as a base case and verified through theoretical HMX graph. This study contributes to the base case for overpressure and blast wave of complex gunpowder containing HMX.

When multiple reactions of quaternary mixtures take place in a reactive distillation column, the behavior of composition trajectory is analyzed by a visual-aided method. By adding additional vectors of multiple reactions and visualizing them in composition space, the composition of each component and extent of each reaction on an arbitrary stage can be easily estimated in terms of the composition trajectory and reaction cascade difference points. Moreover, for a given operating conditions, the number of total stages and position of optimum reaction zone can be determined by the visual-aided method. In this study, ethylene glycol synthesis with a side reaction is taken as an example and analyzed by the proposed graphical method. Through this method, the quaternary reactive distillation with multiple reactions can be analyzed without numerous experiments and simulations.

PEM fuel cell vehicles have been getting much attraction due to a sort of highly clean and effective transportation. The onboard fuel processor, however, is inevitably required to supply the hydrogen by conversion from some fuels since there are not enough available hydrogen stations nearby. A lot of studies have been focused on analyses of ATR reactor under the assumption of thermo-neutral condition and those of the optimized process for the minimization of energy consumption using thermal efficiency as an objective function, which doesn`t guarantee the maximum hydrogen production. In this study, the analysis of optimization for 100 kW PEMFC onboard fuel processor was conducted targeting various fuels such as gasoline, LPG, diesel using newly defined hydrogen efficiency and keeping simply synthesized heat exchanger network regardless of external utilities leading to compactness and integration. Optimal result of gasoline case shows 9.43% reduction compared to previous study, which shows the newly defined objective function leads to better performance than thermal efficiency in terms of hydrogen production. The sensitivity analysis was also done for hydrogen efficiency, heat recovery of each heat exchanger, and the cost of each fuel. Finally, LPG was estimated as the most economical fuel in Korean market.

For improved sustainability of the biorefinery industry, biorefinery-byproduct glycerol is being investigated as an alternate source for hydrogen production. This research designs and optimizes a hydrogen-production process for small hydrogen stations using steam reforming of purified glycerol as the main reaction, replacing existing processes relying on steam methane reforming. Modeling, simulation and optimization using a commercial process simulator are performed for the proposed hydrogen production process from glycerol. The mixture of glycerol and steam are used for making syngas in the reforming process. Then hydrogen are produced from carbon monoxide and steam through the water-gas shift reaction. Finally, hydrogen is separated from carbon dioxide using PSA. This study shows higher yield than former U.S. DOE and Linde studies. Economic evaluations are performed for optimal planning of constructing domestic hydrogen energy infrastructure based on the proposed glycerol-based hydrogen station.

If an accident occurs at work places that handle `the accident preparedness substances`, it causes more property damage and casualties than accidents of normal chemical substances. Even though various systems and regulations have been operated in order to prevent accidents, techniques for reducing and removing human error, which is one of the main reasons of accidents, are still inadequate. In this paper, hazardous work digitization, potential hazard verification, and work evaluation based on domestic technical guidelines have been performed through a case study of the accident of hydrofluoric acid leakage in Gumi in September 2012, and development of a new risk mapping method has been studied to supplement existing systems.

Even if many studies for the prevention of accidents in chemical plant have been carried out, recently more severe accidents in chemical plants have occurred continuously. These have a large potential impact and the loss of casualties and economic can vary according to the activities of early emergency responses. Thus, in order to mitigate the impact of accidents, the studies preparing the guidelines for emergency response have to be urgently needed. In this study, the current emergency responses guidelines and regulations in Korea were investigated to find out the drawbacks. And, to tackle these, BCP(Business continuity plan) method was used to improve the activities of early emergency responses as suggesting the basic components, response steps, feedback and procedures of the emergency responses.

Quantitative risk analysis has been performed for a pervaporation process for production of high test peroxide. Potential main accidents are explosion and fire caused by a decomposition reaction. As the target process has a laboratory scale, the consequence is considered to belong to Category 3. An event tree has been developed as a model for occurrence of a decomposition reaction in the target process. The probability functions of the accident causes have been established based on the frequency data of similar events. Using the constructed model, the failure rate has been calculated. The result indicates that additional safety devices are required in order to achieve an acceptable risk level, i.e. an accident frequency less than . Therefore, a layer of protection analysis has been applied. As a result, it is suggested to introduce inherently safer design to avoid catalytic reaction, a safety instrumented function to prevent overheating, and a relief system that prevents explosion even if a decomposition reaction occurs. The proposed method is expected to contribute to developing safety management systems for various chemical processes including concentration of hydrogen peroxide.

Chlorine is one of the most produced and most used non-flammable chemical substances in the world even though its toxicity and high reactivity cause the ozone layer depletion. However, in modern life, it is impossible to live a good life without using Chlorine and its derivatives since they are being used as an typical ingredient in more than 40 percent of the manufactured goods including medicines, detergents, deodorant, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and plastic, etc. Even if Chlorine has been handled and distributed in various business (small and medium-sized businesses, water purification plants, distribution company, etc.), there have been few researches about its possible health hazard and transportation risks. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to make a detailed assessment of Chlorine-related risks and to model an index of chemicals transportation risks that is adequate for domestic circumstances. The assessment of possible health hazard and transportation risks was made on 13 kinds of hazardous chemicals, including liquid chlorine. This research may be contributed to standardizing the risk assessment of Chlorine and other hazardous chemicals by using an index of transportation risks.

SI process is a thermochemical process producing hydrogen by decomposing water while recycling sulfur and iodine. Various technologies have been developed to improve the efficiency on Section III of SI process, where iodine is separated and recycled. EED(electro-electrodialysis) could increase the efficiency of Section III without additional chemical compounds but a substantial amount of from a process stream is loaded on EED. In order to reduce the load, a crystallization technology prior to EED is considered as an removal process. In this work, particle sinking behavior was modeled to secure basic data for designing an crystallizer applied to -saturated solutions. The composition of solution was determined by thermodynamic UVa model and correlation equations and pure properties were used to evaluate the solution properties. A multiphysics computational tool was utilized to calculate particle sinking velocity changes with respect to particle radius and temperature. The terminal velocity of an particle was estimated around 0.5 m/s under considered radius (1.0 to 2.5 mm) and temperature (10 to ) ranges and it was analyzed that the velocity is more dependent on the solution density than the solution viscosity.

Micellar enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF) was used to remove cadmium from an aqueous solution using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as a surfactant. Operational parameters such as initial permeate flux, retentate pressure, initial cadmium concentration, pH solution, molecular weight cut-off (MWCO), and molar ratio of cadmium to SDS were investigated. Removal efficiency of cadmium from an aqueous solution increased with an increase of retentate pressure, pH solution and molar ratio of cadmium to SDS, and decreased with an increase of initial permeate flux. Higher removal efficiency of cadmium from the aqueous solution was achieved using lower MWCO (smaller membrane pore size). Under optimized experimental condition, cadmium removal efficiency reached 74.6 % within an hour. Using MEUF-ACF hybrid process the removal efficiency of both cadmium and SDS was found to be over 90%.

Acetic acid is the most abundant and serious ethanol fermentation inhibitor in dilute-acid hemicellulosic hydrolysates. A mixture of xylose, acetic acid and sulfuric acid was chosen as a simulated hemicellulosic hydrolysate so as to find an optimal separation system to selectively remove acetic acid from the hydrolysates. In order to attain the purpose, emulsion liquid membrane was applied to removal of acetic acid from the simulated hemicellulosic hydrolysate. The effects of main constituents of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion, such as amine extractant type, surfactant composition, additive type, and type and concentration of stripping agent, on extraction of acetic acid, xylose, and sulfuric acid in the simulated hemicellulosic hydrolysate were investigated. Under specific experimental conditions, degree of extraction of acetic acid was higher than 95% while loss of xylose was insignificant, which means that the current emulsion liquid membrane can be an economically feasible process.

The key for the commercial deployment of IGCC power plants or chemical (methanol, dimethyl ether, etc.) production plants based on coal gasification is their economic advantage over plants producing electricity or chemicals from crude oil or natural gas. The better economy of coal gasification based plants can be obtained by co-production of electricity and chemicals. In this study, we carried out the economic feasibility analysis on the process of co-producing electricity and DME (dimethyl ether) using coal gasification. The plant`s capacity was 250 MW electric and DME production of 300,000 ton per year. Assuming that the sales price of DME is 500,000 won/ton, the production cost of electricity is in the range of 33~58% of 150.69 won/kwh which is the average of SMP (system marginal price) in 2013, Korea. At present, the sales price of DME in China is approximately 900,000 won/ton. Therefore, there are more potential for lowering the price of co-produced electricity when comparing that from IGCC only. Since the co-production system can not only use the coal gasifier and the gas purification process as a common facility but also can control production rates of electricity and DME depending on the market demand, the production cost of electricity and DME can be significantly reduced compared to the process of producing electricity or DME separately.

The Ag-impregnated activated carbon was produced from bamboo activated carbon by soaking method of silver nitrate solution. The carbonization and activation of raw material was conducted at . Soaking conditions are the variation of silver nitrate solution concentration (0.002~0.1 mol/L) and soaking time (maximum 24 h). The specific surface area and pore size distribution of the prepared activated carbons were measured. Also, NO and activated carbon reaction were conducted in a thermogravimetric analyzer in order to use for de-NOx agents of used activated carbon. Carbon-NO reactions were carried out with respect to reaction temperature () and NO gas partial pressure (0.1~1.8 kPa). As results, Ag amounts are saturated within 2h, Ag amounts increased 1.95 mg Ag/g (0.2%)~ 88.70 mg Ag/g (8.87%) with the concentration of silver nitrate solution in the range of 0.002~0.1 mol/L. The specific volume and surface area of bamboo activated carbon of impregnated with 0.2% silver were maximum, but decreased with increasing Ag amounts of activated carbon due to pore blocking. In NO reaction, the reaction rate of impregnated bamboo activated carbon was retarded as compare with that of bamboo activated carbon. Measured reaction orders of NO concentration and activation energy were 0.63[BA], 0.69l[BA(Ag)] and 80.5 kJ/mol[BA], 66.4 kJ/mol[BA(Ag)], respectively.

In this work, hydrate inhibition performance of water-soluble polymers including pyrrolidone, caprolactam, acrylamide types were evaluated using torque measurement and high pressure differential scanning calorimeter (HP -DSC). The obtained experimental results suggest that the studied polymers represent the kinetic hydrate inhibition (KHI) performance. 0.5 wt% polyvinylcaprolactam (PVCap) solution shows the hydrate onset time of 34.4 min and subcooling temperature of 15.9 K, which is better KHI performance than that of pure water - hydrate onset time of 12.3 min and subcooling temperature of 6.0 K. 0.5 wt% polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) solution shows the hydrate onset time of 27.6 min and the subcooling temperature of 13.2 K while polyacrylamide-co-acrylic acid partial sodium salt (PAM-co-AA) solution shows less KHI performance than PVP solution at both 0.5 and 5.0 wt%. However, PAM-co-AA solution shows slow growth rate and low hydrate amount than PVCap. In addition to hydrate onset and growth condition, torque change with time was investigated as one of KHI evaluation methods. 0.5 wt% PVCap solution shows the lowest average torque of 6.4 N cm and 0.5 wt% PAM-co-AA solution shows the average torque of 7.2 N cm. For 0.5 wt% PVP solution, it increases 11.5 N cm and 5.0 wt% PAM-co-AA solution shows the maximum average torque of 13.4 N cm, which is similar to the average torque of pure water, 15.2 N cm. Judging from the experimental results obtained by both an autoclave and a HP -DSC, the PVCap solution shows the best performance among the KHIs in terms of delaying hydrate nucleation. From these results, it can be concluded that the torque change with time is useful to identify the flow ability of tested solution, and the further research on the inhibition of hydrate formation can be approached in various aspects using a HP -DSC.

Steam gasification of sawdust char was performed in a thermobalance reactor at high temperature. Gasification temperature was changed from to and steam partial pressure was 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 atm. Three models of gas-solid reaction were applied to the reaction kinetics analysis and modified volumetric model was an appropriate model. Reaction control regime and diffusion control regime were distinct depending on the temperature. Apparent activation energy and pre-exponential factors for both of the regimes were evaluated and the effects of steam partial pressure were examined. concentration in the produced gas was two times higher than that of CO due to the gasification accompanying by the water gas shift reaction.

Driven by both environmental and economic reasons, the development of small to medium scale GTL(gas-to-liquid) process for offshore applications and for utilizing other stranded or associated gas has recently been studied increasingly. Microchannel GTL reactors have been prefrered over the conventional GTL reactors for such applications, due to its compactness, and additional advantages of small heat and mass transfer distance desired for high heat transfer performance and reactor conversion. In this work, multi-microchannel reactor was simulated by using commercial CFD code, ANSYS FLUENT, to study the geometric effect of the microchannels on the heat transfer phenomena. A heat generation curve was first calculated by modeling a Fischer-Tropsch reaction in a single-microchannel reactor model using Matlab-ASPEN integration platform. The calculated heat generation curve was implemented to the CFD model. Four design variables based on the microchannel geometry namely coolant channel width, coolant channel height, coolant channel to process channel distance, and coolant channel to coolant channel distance, were selected for calculating three dependent variables namely, heat flux, maximum temperature of coolant channel, and maximum temperature of process channel. The simulation results were visualized to understand the effects of the design variables on the dependent variables. Heat flux and maximum temperature of cooling channel and process channel were found to be increasing when coolant channel width and height were decreased. Coolant channel to process channel distance was found to have no effect on the heat transfer phenomena. Finally, total heat flux was found to be increasing and maximum coolant channel temperature to be decreasing when coolant channel to coolant channel distance was decreased. Using the qualitative trend revealed from the present study, an appropriate process channel and coolant channel geometry along with the distance between the adjacent channels can be recommended for a microchannel reactor that meet a desired reactor performance on heat transfer phenomena and hence reactor conversion of a Fischer-Tropsch microchannel reactor.

This study was conducted to optimize the medium composition for carotenoid production in Arthrobacter sp. PAMC 25486 through response surface methodology (RSM). Using a Placket-Burman design, from which yeast extract, and dextrose were identified as the significant factors affecting carotenoids production. RSM studies for carotenoids production by Arthrobacter sp. PAMC 25486 have been carried out for three parameters of yeast extract, and dextrose concentrations. These significant factors were optimized by experiments and RSM, as 1 g/L yeast extract, 0.0879 g/L and 1 g/L dextrose. The experimentally obtained concentration of carotenoid was 288 mg/L, and it became 2-fold increase on concentration before optimization.